Well, I'm in the rhubarb now.

Got the paperwork back from the Secretary of State's office four days ago, I got the EIN number and the bank account started today. Purple Ink Publishing LLC is now official. It's real now. It's going to happen.

Just because you're doing what you're meant to do doesn't mean you're not scared. It's not easy. If anything it's more difficult. But that's the whole point of the exercise. The universe may conspire to put you on the path but it doesn't just fall into your hands. Getting to the place where I can do this is one moment in time. Staying on the path, staying true to my goals and my vision for this magazine over what may be a very long time is quite another. To say nothing of the sheer mundane challenges of running a magazine, breaking even or thriving in an economy going down in flames...

So. $500 today. My income tax refund check, when it comes in. Whatever we can make on subscriptions, after we go live on January 1st. If we can just get, say, 1000 subscribers I'd consider the first year to be a resounding success. That would put us over the expenses, with some left over to pay my web editor and story editor and maybe pay to go to two or three cons. That's enough for me.

I was thinking earlier that by all conventional standards my life is essentially worthless. I have no kids, I have no husband, I live in a dump, I'm a three time college drop-out, and I work in a dead-end job that anyone could do with two weeks of training. I'm a non-entity. So it doesn't matter what I do with my life. I've chosen to devote my life to science fiction because it matters to me. It's the thing that makes my life matter to me, that maybe to this small world and culture I could contribute something of lasting value. There are people in this world who would stand up to a firing squad for Shakespeare, or Bach, or quantum physics or Picasso, because these things are simply transcendentally sublime. There is some quality in them that is beyond words or images or music or math. For me it's in science fiction, and I'm just glad I found it early enough in my life to be able to do something about it.